A provocative, unsponsored assessment of current and future legal, regulatory, marketplace, and cultural issues affecting telecommunications and information policy presented by Rob Frieden, Pioneers Chair and Professor of Telecommunications and Law, Penn State University

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Better Than Best Efforts Routing of Mission Critical Traffic and the FCC

It appears
that the FCC will permit exceptions to the standard, plain vanilla best efforts
routing standard for Internet traffic, such as the paid peering arrangement recently
negotiated between Comcast and Netflix.In both academic and applied papers I have supported this option, with
several major conditions. See, e.g., Net Bias
and the Treatment of 'Mission-Critical' Bitshttp://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2422842.

With no
opposition that I have seen, companies like Akamai offer better than best
efforts routing of “mission critical” traffic from content source to last
mile, “retail” Internet Service Providers. This service improves the odds for congestion-free
delivery of “mission critical” traffic, e.g., live video streaming.It appears that the FCC intends to permit better
than best efforts routing options for retail ISPs.

I have no
problem with ISPs throughout the Internet ecosystem providing different tiers
of service, provided the most costly differentiation offers a true
enhancement.Put more simply better than
best efforts should not foreclose the best efforts option, particularly for
ventures and individuals whose traffic volumes have no possibility of causing congestion.Comcast and other retail ISPs should have the
option of providing companies like Netflix with an insurance policy of sorts so
long as all ventures and individuals do not have to follow suit.Without transparency and reporting
requirements companies like Comcast can punish anyone refusing to upgrade from the
old standard best efforts option by all but guaranteeing congestion and
degraded service.

ISPs should
have the opportunity to offer an enhanced deliver option with less latency, faster
delivery speeds and improved odds for high quality of service.But the enhancement should not become
necessary for any and all users.

1 comment:

Kelly Cameron
said...

Rob - interesting view. Even in the good old days of common carrier regulation, we recognized that there could be discrimination (mainly in price, but also in terms and conditions) but they had to be reasonable. I think this should be common carrier regulation. I know most people in the business would think this is crazy but what do you think?

About Me

Rob Frieden serves as Pioneers Chair and Professor of Telecommunications and Law at Penn State University.He also provides legal, management and market forecasting consultancy services and has written four books, most recently Winning the Silicon Sweepstakes: Can the United States Compete in Global Telecommunications published by Yale University Press. Rob has written over one hundred articles in law reviews and telecommunications policy journals and has provided commentary in a variety of trade periodicals. He updates a major communications treatise: All About Cable and Broadband (Law Journal Press).

Rob has held senior policy making positions in international telecommunications at the United States Federal Communications Commission and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.In the private sector, he practiced law in Washington, D.C., and served as Assistant General Counsel at PTAT System, Inc. where he handled corporate, transactional and regulatory issues for the nation's first private undersea fiber optic cable company. Professor Frieden holds a B.A., with distinction, from the University of Pennsylvania (1977) and a J.D. from the University of Virginia (1980).